Harry Potter and the Moist Towelette
by mcpon14
Summary: This story takes place years after Harry Potters schooling days at Hogwarts. Harry is now the Head Auror. Different characters take turns narrating each chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Narrator: Dudley Dursley**

I bolted awake in my bed, sweating. My eyes were wide. The humongous floating face of Harry Potter was still a little to the side of my view. It was translucent. It was more of a faded outline. More of a presence. It had followed me from my dream. It was the only thing that I remember from it even though I had been immersed in it only moments before. I tried to look past it, to look at the wall in front of me. (I was in my bedroom.) But the visual idea of his roundly-rimmed glasses and the lightning scar on his forehead pierced my consciousness.

I shook my head instinctively and found out that that worked. It was still there but was now drifting more and more into the background of my mind.

I got out of bed and to run away from that visage even more, I decided to shadow box. (Shadow boxing and hitting the bag were hobbies of mine.) I kept throwing the same one-two (jab-cross) combination over and over. I kept trying to steel my mind towards focusing on something else that doesn't have anything to do with Harry Potter and his world.

Then I peeked upward. It was my co-worker. (I was a security guard for an old theatre that used to stage plays. My employers were now using it for movie sets and staging areas for movies. My job was to guard entrances or exits.) The visual of him was hazy, like only the idea of him was there and not the real him. His opacity level was only fifty on a scale where the opacity of a real person standing in front of you would be a hundred.

He was giving me a queer look.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

He had a tired-of-nonsense look on his face.

"Nothing," I said.

Then I threw another one-two.

"Are you supposed to be doing that?" he asked, annoyed.

"What? I could do it. I'm in my own home." I responded.

Then I threw a one-two at his chest. He didn't flinch or react in any way.

"Look. At least don't do that at me." he said.

"Okay. Where are you?" I asked.

"Right in front of you," he answered impatiently.

I turned around a full one-eighty and threw another combo.

"Hey! What did I just say." he barked.

I looked up and he was standing right in front of me looking testy.

"What? I thought that you were behind me." I replied, pointing with an outstretched arm in that direction.

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Okay. You are right here." I said pointing in front of me. "I will do it in this direction." I said, pointing to my right.

I turned to my right and did it. I peered up and there he was in front of me with an exasperated look on his face.

Then I swept my eyes around my surroundings and saw that I, indeed, was in my bedroom. Then in my peripheral vision, I glanced the bright green of a part of a digit on my clock. I took a peek at it. It said three o'clock. I was supposed to be at work! My shift had started an hour ago!

I plopped down on my bed. I had to call my boss. But what should I say to him?

Then I remembered my dream and all of my attention became absorbed in my thoughts about it.

After Harry's seventh year of going to _that_ school, my family never saw him again. He sent us a Christmas card the year following that seventh year but we didn't reciprocate and neither side had contact with each other ever since, as far as I know. That was twenty years ago. Over the years, I started feeling really bad about how we treated the little bloke, locking him up in a cupboard under the stairs and all. We treated him like a dog. We were angry about having the burden of caring for him being forced on us and we took it out on him. It wasn't his fault. I always wanted to apologize to the git and make amends but was always scared to ask dad about his whereabouts. And now this dream, I had, which was probably a guilt-trip. It was probably meant to teach me about what I should have done. I should have just barreled ahead and did the right thing. I had the mind to do it for the past month now but I guess I was never able to muster enough from the jewels to complete the task. And then this dream . . .

In the dream, I had stood behind dad while he was reading a newspaper on the couch. I had stood there for ten minutes looking around, peeking at different spots of the living room always avoiding the back of his head. Then finally, my legs, as if of its own volition marched right up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked at me with naive eyes and I plowed ahead with it.

"Dad. The real reason why I came over today was to ask if you knew where Harry was?"

I expected him to have had absolutely no idea and to look at me as if I was crazy to think that he had. But all he did was look down for a few seconds, look back at me, look down again for a few seconds, then get up with a sigh. We went into his room wordlessly and he handed me a piece of paper from inside a desk drawer.

"Where did you get this?"

"A friend of his gave it to me about five years ago."

I had surprised look on my face.

"You know, George? Next door, George? Yeah, that's who gave it to me." he chuckled.

I arrived at the address written on the note. It was just a trailer home on cinder blocks. There were no wheels. There was an abandoned-looking plastic kiddie slide sitting off to the side, a tree that looked derelict and three tires strewn around. I was looking around at the debris-riddled place when I suddenly felt a presence to my side. It felt as if he had been there the whole time just silently observing as I took a step, here, took a step, there, wandering around the place with my eyes.

I looked over to my left and it was Harry.

"What is it? What do you need?" he asked anxiously.

I stood there, paused, probably with my mouth open for a while before I answered: "Harry. I just want to let you know that I am sorry for how my family treated you all of those years when we were children. It wasn't right."

"That's okay," he said quickly. "Who sent you here? Did you see anyone suspicious on your commute. Was anyone watching you or following you?"

"No-o. No one." I said looking at him curiously. I examined his face but it was unmoving except for the breeze that kept pushing his bangs to the side.

Then he spoke at last.

"You've been cursed," he mouthed the words softly as I was studying his eyes.

When he said that, I was hit by how barren this neighborhood suddenly felt. It seemed like the entire landscape here was devoid of people. The normal noise traffic of people was non-existent.

Then I heard a faint pop as he morphed into a warped confusion of the colors of his skin, hair and clothes before disappearing right in front of my face. I looked over to my right and scanned the area in that region to see if anyone had saw that, if not people then animals - birds, a stray cat or maybe insects - did.

Then I looked over to my left side and did the same.

Then I felt the momentary and seemingly unmistakeable presence of the same swirling and warped colors on my right side so I turned towards it. When I did, Harry was standing there.

"Dudley, do not tell a soul about anything you see here."

Then he did his gobbledygook again and disappeared.

I blinked several times to put all of the weird visuals of Harry doing those things out of my mind. When I had stopped blinking, my eyes were wide open.

I was at work. I looked at the familiar surroundings of the back of the theatre. I was in the alley looking at the parking lot where the equipment trucks were parked. There were several cables running from the back of one, across the alley and into the open entrance that I was guarding. I was sitting on a milk crate even though I wasn't supposed to. I was supposed to be standing. I suddenly felt a little nervous about that. Then I became aware of the weight on the left side of my chest: my usual badge. The weight came from it being made out of metal.

Then it dawned on me: there was no one out here. I could see cars driving by on the road that was on the front side of the parking lot. I was facing the back side of it. One side of the alley was blocked off by a wall but the other side opened out onto a road that was perpendicular to it but was a long ways down since the alley stretched past seven buildings. There was car traffic on that road. The desertedness was unusual because the area was normally bustling with workers traveling in and out of this entrance, coming out to get something or going in to bring something in.

Then I heard the footsteps of a solitary figure walking out. It allayed my uneasiness a little. Then I stood up alarmed, thinking that maybe it was a co-worker checking up on me.

It wasn't. It was a guy who was dressed in all black. He wore a black jacket over a black turtle-neck. His slacks were black and he wore leather dress shoes. When he came out of the entrance, he paused and stared at me with a stern expression.

Then he smiled and his eyes softened.

"You see that truck over there," he began as he pointed. "That's craft services (snack area) over there. Go ahead and get yourself some lunch."

I looked over at where he was directing me.

Then all of a sudden, I felt a tuft of my hair being grabbed. Then everything became a swirl of black and blue and gray with curved streaks of white. I felt the movement of traveling through a tunnel. After a very brief time, the warped colors and the racing-through-something feeling abruptly vanished and I was splashed onto a scene that seemed very foreign to me.

The environment felt very cavernous. It felt hollow yet densely populated. The place was lit with lanterns that were sitting on stands. There were several people surrounding me. They looked to be wearing dark-colored cloaks with cowls over their heads.

There was one standing in front of the pack. He raised his hand while holding a stick in it.

"Immobulus!" he said with a flourish.

It was followed by a bright blue jet that smashed into me.

My head and body stiffened and I keeled over onto my side like petrified wood. I was frozen with a startled look on my face staring at shoes and the lower parts of people's cloaks. I could still hear, see, feel and smell.

"Levicorpus!" the same voice said with relish.

I was hit with a flash of green. Then I felt myself flung upwards by invisible forces then dangled upside-down. Then I felt myself gravitating away from that cabal. The more I moved away from them the more I was approaching an area that was lighted that was ahead.

Then I stopped.

"Finite," the same person said and I was able to move around again but was still hanging upside-down.

I looked around and I was in the frame of an opening. It looked to be sand on the ground. I looked to be in the mouth of a cave.

Then I looked to my side and saw a person in the same floating upside-down predicament as me. What was different was that he had gashes all over his face and arms. His shirt had been ripped in places revealing cuts. His eyes were closed.

I immediately recognized him. It was dad.

Then I heard the walking of someone from behind me and I turned and it was the same hooded person that had been yelling those singular words earlier.

When he halted, it gave me chills.

"Potter! I bet you a hundred galleons that this one will squeal louder than the last!" he bellowed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Narrator: Ginny Potter**

**The beginning of this chapter takes place three weeks before Dudley gets kidnapped.**

Dad had one of these contraptions back when I was little. He would tinker with it, trying his best to satisfy his curiosity. It certainly smells back here and it is quite confining.

There were six windows in this conveyance on wheels and four doors. There were one large one in the front and one large one in the back with two doors each on either side each with their own windows.

I looked up at the mirror that was situated in the upper-middle part of the front window and saw the gruffily stern eyeballs of the helmsman of this metal encasement of a machine staring piercingly back at me through it. I only thought it queer to have a mirror placed there, that's all, I wanted to say but I thought better of it.

_Wham_!

I had lurched forward and careened my forehead into the back of the his seat. I didn't know what the movement meant so I looked around unsure and saw that this moving room had stopped. The scenery wasn't whizzing by the windows anymore.

"Better buckle up," he snickered.

"What do you mean?"

He responded with a startled look then recovered.

"Suit yourself, ma'am," he said dismissively.

I frowned. It was more to myself and not to him. Claudia McNellan was a very good friend of mine back when I used to work at a butterbeer shop. She and I haven't stayed in touch but out of nowhere her face appears in my fireplace and she tells me that she wants to get reacquainted. I was thinking about suggesting that we could make talking to each other through our fireplaces a regular thing but she seemed and sounded like she really needed a face-to-face interaction. She tried to sound cheerful while talking to me but she had this despondent look on her face. I didn't want to pry but if I dallied long enough at her place, I thought, she might want to open up. She was vehement about people not apparating into her house for some reason, and she doesn't have a floo network, she said, even though she has a fireplace. (I was bandying about in my mind now whether I should have probed further.) Therefore, she insisted on this thing called a taxi and sent one to my house to bring me to her. As I now sat in this contraption, I mused about what her problems could be.

"Here we are, ma'am," he informed. "And don't worry. The fee is already paid for."

As I got out of the hollow body of this conveyance, he was standing on the sidewalk smiling genially.

"Here's an Aspirin for your headache, ma'am. The least I can do."

I grabbed it and thanked him absent-mindedly. Wait. What's an _aspirin_, I thought. But when I turned around to ask him, he had already gotten into that thing called a taxi.

* * *

><p>Inside of Claudia's apartment was this lemony smell that pervaded the entire place. Everything seemed exaggeratingly tidy. Everything looked so precisely geometrical, so sharply arranged, as if nothing dared to be an iota of a bit crooked. I looked out at the window. It was so bright out. The glare of the sun was almost blinding. I looked around the home to see where she was but couldn't spot her anywhere. But she did answer when I knocked and the door promptly opened but revealed nobody. I tentatively stepped inside.<p>

I saw an envelope on the coffee table. It said _Dear Ginny_. I opened it to slipped out the paper that was inside:

_Please take off your shoes._

Then an eerie feeling crawled down my back. It seemed as if the place was forced to be hush as if the furniture and walls had their mouths clamped shut as they strained to blurt outward.

"Er," I uttered and left.

I scampered down the stairs that led to the upper floor of this two story apartment complex and heard a voice, which reassured me, calling out.

"Ginny! Ginny! Wait!"

I turned around with a smile. It was Claudia. She had a frantic look in her eyes. You don't need to look so distressed, you've got my attention, I thought.

"Ginny. Sorry for not being there when you came in. I had to run to the bathroom right after I opened the door."

She wore a pleading look on her face, one of those where it looks like the person is trying to mask it and look pleasant yet it shows through.

I felt really bad for her and gave her a sympathetic nod.

We were back in her home and remembering the note, I immediately took off my shoes. I didn't want her to have to ask me.

She smiled apologetically at me.

"Socks, too," she said sheepishly.

She must be a obsessively compulsive about cleaniness, I thought, maybe even to the point of being a bit paranoid. I never knew this about her. I shrugged to myself: it was her house, her rules.

After I did that we plopped onto her couch.

"Is everything okay?" I asked and regretted it the moment I had opened my mouth thinking that that was coming on too strongly.

"Everything is fine," she replied brightly but then her smile faltered. "How about yourself?"

"How's Jack?" I blurted out.

When I had seen her composure break like that, I just spilled.

She looked stumped for a secod then she looked down with a sad expression. Oh. Maybe that's where the trouble lies, I thought.

Then she jerked her head back up with a smile.

"Can I get you some butterbeer? We sure knew how to make em' back then, didn't we?"

Before I could answer, she hurried off into the kitchen.

Then suddenly I noticed some pain on the soles of my feet. I checked one then the other and they were pink and throbbing.

She came back with a tray that had two frothing mugs of butterbeer sitting on it and a pair of slippers.

I saw that she was wearing some herself.

"Oh! What's wrong with your feet?" she exclaimed almost unsettling the mugs.

"I don't know."

She peered in to take a look.

"They're sunburnt. Oh my goodness!" she gasped. "Here. Lie down."

I took out my wand.

"Episkey," I casted, sending a spell onto my pained areas.

They felt a bit better.

I gingerly laid my legs up on the couch and reclined back. I suddenly felt how hot it was in here. Had it always been this hot? I must not have noticed before. I looked up at her and she was handing me a mug.

Feeling grateful, I drained half of it in one gulp. It was so refreshing.

"So. How are you and Harry doing?" she asked.

"We're fine. Has it always been this hot in here?"

"Doesn't feel that way to me," she replied sweetly. "I'll go see what I can do."

She went into a room then came back. It felt hotter than before.

"It'll be cooler soon." she assured.

I drank the rest of the butterbeer.

She went back into the same room.

_Ouch_! I grabbed my ankles and brought my head forward. The bottom of my feet are in the beginning stages of blistering. I could feel searing streaks of pain running from top to bottom on each of the soles. My body started a new emission of perspiration at the thought of the prospect of it cracking like fault lines.

"Episkey," I commanded again, zapping my injured areas.

It healed it a bit but not enough to my liking.

I looked up and she was standing there with two plump pillows that had tassels dangling from each corner of each.

"Pretty," I commented with a smile.

"Lean forward," she smiled, returning it.

After I had been comfortably situated with the new amenties behind my back, she sat down on a plush blue armchair that was behind my head.

"How are you doing these days. We keep talking about me but what about you?" she asked genially.

"I'm not doing so well at the moment," I chuckled.

The room did feel much cooler as promised for which I was grateful for.

"So did Harry get the promotion that he was after? And what was it?"

I fidgeted a little since I didn't expect a question like that.

"Yes. He became the Head Auror." I replied.

"I've been trying to learn how to do wandless magic for a while now. Do you know somebody that can teach me? Can you do it? she asked.

"Yes, I know several people. And no, I can't do wandless magic." I responded.

My answers seem to spill out in kneejerk reactions as if they were tumbling out of their own accord.

"Accio, Ginny's wand," she casted.

I propped up on my elbows and turned to look at her with a startled gawking expression as my wand floated to her.

"I don't want you to accidentally break it or get poked by it as you rest here," she said sweetly. "Are you okay with that?"

As she was talking, she grabbed the hovering wand in mid-air and put it in a bag that was next to her chair.

"Not really." I replied.

"Well . . . okay," she said as she took the wand back out and handed it to me. "Sorry. I thought that it might be kind of jagged and it might feel uncomfortable."

She gave me an apologetic look.

I clutched it and put it next to my thigh, as if barricading it behind it away from her.

She began again.

"Do you know where Harry's been going with this woman and do you know who she is?" she said while handing me a picture of the person from the same bag.

I peered over and recognized her. Strange. The person in the picture wasn't moving. I thought all pictures did.

"That's Maggie Muddlefoot," I told her. Wait, I thought. I didn't mean to offer that information.

She must have slipped me something!

I sat up and whirled half of my body towards her with my wand pointed. I narrowed my eyes zooming my aim right at her chest.

"Harry's been cheating on you!" she exclaimed.

"What?" I said, lowering it.

After I had calmed down, she continued.

"May I?" she said as she took our a series of photographs.

It showed Harry and Maggie at a cafe table, each with a cup in front of them. They were smiling at each other.

"And this one is of them going into a hotel," she said tapping a finger on another one of the pictures.

She peered up at me tentatively.

"That's why I wanted you to come over. I wanted to know if there was anything wrong with your marriage? I apologize if I am being intrusive. I thought that you would want to know about him possibly doing you wrong." she explained.

I relaxed a bit and laid back down. I looked up at her ceiling, thinking.

"Do you know any places where she could have gone off with him? At anytime. Any idea?" she asked.

"No." I replied.

"How do you know her?" she questioned.

"I saw her at my house one time with Harry." I told her.

"When?" she asked.

"About a year ago." I said.

She took out another picture. **Author's note: It was a picture of a gun.**

"Did you see her with this? It is usually put in the waist hem of the pants. On the hip or in the lower back. It is usually carried in a holder if the person is traveling with it." she explained.

She showed me a picture of this "holder. It looked like a leather pouch that could be strapped onto something.

I thought about that event. It seemed like an ordinary visit. She was introduced to me as a friend. But then, yes . . .

"She had a bulge in the back of her pants that looked like it could have concealed that under her shirt." I answered.

"Did he ever mention her? If so, in what context?" she questioned.

"No-o." I said unsure.

"Hmmm. That thing is a love-potion dispenser. That device injects it into the person." she divulged.

I was shocked. Then I felt that I had a swimming head. Then I esconced myself into my pillow. I had decided to put off those thoughts and deal with them later.

"Can I sleep a bit?" I asked with a hint of exasperation.

"Sure." she said.

* * *

><p>When I woke up, it felt like I was in a stranger's house. I felt like I didn't even know this person anymore. I felt like she must have changed drastically since we were in touch. I decided that I should skedaddle.<p>

I got up, slipped on the slippers that she had left for me earlier and headed towards my shoes which were next to the front door. I winced with each step.

She emerged from a room next to the living room. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she had a little mascara running down each of her facial cheeks.

"I have some pumpkin pie and whipped cream for us," she sniffled.

Against my better judgment, I turned around with a consoling face.

"What's wrong?"

"I just can't believe my Roger dumped me. He is so callous. I'm trying to get over him but thoughts about him just keep popping up in my mind which leaves me a slobbering, blubbering mess each time."

"Oh, sweetie."

"I think I could still help you with the Harry thing to find more proof that he's cheating on you." She said then sighed and continued. "I just have no one to talk to. I'm so lonely ever since he left."

Now I was beginning to see what was going on here: She made up the idea of Harry cheating on me in order to get me to keep her company. I mean, those non-moving pictures were not really evidence of an affair. As proof, they were flimsy at best. She sure went through a lot of effort and spent a lot of time in order to corral a friend.

I'll stay. Besides, I want to know who Roger is. He sounded devilish!

* * *

><p>I woke up again around past midnight, judging by the darkness outside. The pumpkin pie had made me sleepy. I reckoned that it was about time that I had left. This time for real. I slipped on the slippers and walked towards my shoes.<p>

Then I heard her voice: "Ohhhh . . . "

It sounded like the drawn out groan of missing someone and wallowing in the grief.

I was going to leave her a note of my good-bye but I decided that it might be more polite to do so in person, so I headed towards the room that she was in.

Her door was closed but as I neared it, I could detect a faint nauseating stench. It was from the room next door. I gingerly opened the door and slowly turned on the gas for the lantern that was attached to the wall. A flame whooshed on and lit up the room. There was a dresser, a desk, a chair, a closet and a bed. Everything looked very tidy and a bit stuffy. The furniture of the room looked like they belonged in a room in a quaint cottage and the set-up of them reflects it, yet they were set against a backdrop of modern walls and modern sliding windows. On the bottom half of one, there looked to be numerous faded stains of splatters. The color looked to be dark brown or red. I also found some on the section of the carpet that was right below it. There was, also, a faint aroma of the soap that the spell, Scourgify, uses. I had a strong suspicion that something dastardly and criminal took place here. I immediately drew my wand.

From the window, I could see that the moon was full and seeing it as an omen grew monstrous in my mind, which coupled with my heightened awareness of stumbling onto something ghastly made me search for clues. I had a suspicion that those pieces of evidence might be gone by the time the proper authorities arrived. A normal person might have fled but I felt my Gryffindor bravery and pride for it welling up inside. Then from my peripheral vision, I spotted a long, narrow glint. I picked it up and it was a clear sliver. I put it in my pocket.

I turned the lantern off and tip-toed out of the room towards the front door. The light of the room that Claudia was in was on as indicated by the glow underneath the door. I tried to muffle my steps as best as I could.

When I had reached my shoes, Claudia's words penetrated my ears: "Why are you leaving?"

Her words came out innocent-sounding but they seemed to have slithered out of her mouth instead of being spoken.

I spun around.

"Stupefy!" I vociferated with my wand pointed at her.

But nothing happened. As I realized that, I saw that she had drew her own wand.

"Stupefy!" she declared.

I saw a flash of red light from her then I was out.


End file.
